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support the generally held view that copies bound in black can be described as the first issue. Although the colophon states that each copy was numbered and signed, the majority appear to have been left blank. This copy is from the library of Clive Harper, Crowley scholar and bibliographer of Austin Osman Spare, with his discreet bookplate tipped-in to the rear. Square octavo. Original black cloth, titles in geometric design by Crowley within frame in white to front cover, edges untrimmed. Title page printed in red and black. Frontispiece photogravure portrait of Crowley by Aimé Dupont and numerous diagrams in the text. Bookseller’s pencilled notes to front pastedown. Spine a little cocked, minor rubbing to edges, touch of wear to very tips, a couple of small white marks to cloth of rear cover, decoration to front cover lightly soiled and very slightly chipped but remaining wholer than usual, light offsetting to outer leaves, a couple of small marginal thumb smudges; a very good copy indeed. ¶ Tobias Churton, Aleister Crowley in India: The Secret Influence of Eastern Mysticism on Magic and the Occult , 2019; Stuart McWilliams, Aleister Crowley’s Graphomania and the Transformations of Magical Inscriptivity , 2016; Lawrence Sutin, Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley , 2014; James Webb, The Harmonious Circle , 1980. £8,750 [149222] 32 CUMMINGS, E. E., and others. The Harvard Monthly. Vol. LVI, No. 4. Cambridge, MA: The Harvard Monthly, June 1913 “Do you remember when the fluttering dusk, beating the west with faint wild wings, through space sank, with night’s arrow in her heart?”
First edition, first printing, this copy with the author’s name card, inscribed by him on the verso, “Do you remember?”. Cummings gifted this poem to his co-star and romantic interest Amy de Gozzaldi after acting in a play with her at Harvard: this is almost certainly the copy, with its discreetly romantic quote from the poem, and the page with the poem lightly dog-eared, that he presented to his leading lady. In May 1913, Cummings had appeared in the Cambridge Social Dramatic Club’s production of Jerome K. Jerome’s The New Lady Bantock, or Fanny and the Servant Problem . Cummings played a footman named Ernest Bennet, who was scripted to kiss Lady Bancock, played by Amy de Gozzaldi, for whom Cummings had romantic feelings. Lord Bantock was played by a graduate student whom Cummings recalled as being “a snob, cold, older than me, aloof, [who] never sat with the rest of the cast at rehearsals”. This was T. S. Eliot, returned from his year abroad in Paris. Eliot was a rival for de Gozzaldi’s attention, and when the customary gifts were presented to the leading lady at the end of the run, Eliot brought Gozzaldi roses, and Cummings gifted her this poem (Webster). Octavo. Original wire-stitched brown wrappers printed in black and red. Housed in a custom marbled box with brown morocco spine, author’s name card laminated and mounted on the inside. A few trivial creases, tiny chip to top corner of rear wrapper and final two leaves, wrappers clean and bright, the page with Cummins’s poem (p. 28) lightly dog-eared, else internally fresh. A near-fine copy. ¶ Michael Webster, “Cummings Centennials”, EEC Society Blog , available online. £1,750 [155644]
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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